


Nanny Knows Best

by DictionaryWrites



Series: Nanny Knows Best [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Absent Parents, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Asexual Character, Character Study, Children, Complicated Relationships, Emotionally Repressed, Gardener Aziraphale (Good Omens), Gen, Gender Identity, Gender Roles, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Kid Fic, Misogyny, Nanny Crowley (Good Omens), Nature Versus Nurture, Non-Consensual Groping, Non-Graphic Violence, Objectification, POV Crowley (Good Omens), POV Warlock Dowling (Good Omens), Sexual Harassment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-09 23:08:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19485889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: Being a nanny, that should be simple. Simple. Easy as pie.Crowley wished that were true.





	1. Such A Naughty Nanny?

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [Nanny Knows Best](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19913341) by [swallowofstar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/swallowofstar/pseuds/swallowofstar)



> This fic is all coming from a lot of thoughts about how Ashtoreth is repeatedly described in BDSM terms and so on, and the way she's repeatedly boiled into a sexy figure rather than someone who's here to look after Warlock. A lot of genderweird stuff going on here, so just be aware that the pronouns swap between he/she when the conversation goes between Crowley and Nanny, and please be aware that a lot of this fic centres on Crowley's feelings as being a figure of objectification and sexualisation by some other members in the household, without being able to use miracles as a matter of course, so some of the harassment will be upsetting. 
> 
> With that said, this fic is mostly about Crowley's relationship with Warlock, his own parenting feels, and the difficulty he has in letting a child know, even knowing that he's probably going to destroy the world, that that world is flawed.

“I understand you need a nanny,” Crowley said, and the butler looked him up and down. His skin prickled, and for just a moment, he wondered if he’d misjudged the outfit, the persona, as he’d examined it in the mirror, saw the lascivious flare in the butler’s eyes… And then he stepped aside, allowing Crowley to step neatly aside.

He’d taken a long time, packing his case, making sure it was all perfectly right. The Bentley would stay in London: Nanny Ashtoreth was a lady, and while she _could_ drive, she certainly didn’t, if it might be helped. Prim, proper, but not English, keep it away from London; cold, an apparent disciplinarian, but doting on the wee wain.

He had considered going for the fashionable au pair – playing himself off as some pretty thing who wore a pentagram and wore his goth clothes, had the hair long, but… No, that would attract too much attention, and while presenting as _any kind_ of woman usually got you more attention than you wanted, just for being alive, Ashtoreth, at least, they’d be too frightened to touch without permission.

Crowley stepped past the butler, his flat shoes clicking on the tiled floor of the entrance hall, his carpet bag held neatly by his side, his umbrella held loosely in his other hand. He wore neat gloves, and thick, dark grey stockings, and black tweed. His hair contained multitudes (of pins).

When he entered the room where Mr and Mrs Dowling were waiting, he surveyed the scene with his eyebrows politely unarched, but with such quiet disapproval that one felt, even without any visual cue, that such an arch was swiftly incoming. The playroom was littered with brightly coloured, popping furniture, and while there were yellow and red shelves against the walls, these were empty: the floor was littered with toys, albeit shoved toward the edge of the room, and they were of the varied sort, most of them very expensive, and electronic. Some of them whirred or made noise, until Crowley looked at them, and then they went quiet.

Upon one of the traditional rugs, patterned with a bird’s eye view of a London street block, there was a coffee table, and upon the brightly red sofa on the other side sat Mr and Mrs Dowling. Mr Dowling did not appear to have aged since last the reader might have seen him upon a shakily held iPad screen; Mrs Dowling, exhausted, looked to have aged centuries. This happens when a woman has not slept a night through for four consecutive months.

Harriet Dowling had never wanted children, in the sense that she had wanted to care for them, or play with them. She had never been particularly interested in picking up a toy doll as a little girl: she had been much more interested in her supermarket play set, of which she was regional manager by the time she was six. She had studied Business Analytics at university, and then gone into business management, and become a real go-getter in her field. Then, she had met Thaddeus, and the two of them had settled together. By mutual agreement, which was more mutual on one side than the other, they had decided that she would set her career aside to spend more time with him, and then, to have children.

This had not been easy, and conception had taken several, harrowing years, and when she had finally been able to hold her son, she had been delighted! Warlock was so _small_ , so delicate, and she and Thaddeus had made him together, of their own bodies, and how beautiful he was, and he was _theirs!_

And then Warlock had started crying, and never seemed to stop.

The silver shine of motherhood tarnished quickly. Harriet Dowling learned very fast that she wasn’t very certain of babies, or how to change their nappies, or how to breastfeed, or any of it. It had all seemed very intuitive when people had explained it, but then when she had tried to feed Warlock from her breast, it had _hurt_ , and he’d barely eaten enough, and she’d sobbed the whole way through.

 _That_ had gotten easier – although he still _bit_ sometimes, and how he managed to hurt so much with no teeth at all, she didn’t know – but the rest… He barely slept. She couldn’t bear it, being with him all the time, when he screamed so loudly, and when Thaddeus was so rarely here, and in any case, could sleep right through it when Warlock screamed in the cot beside the bed.

He was grizzling now, and Nanny Ashtoreth, the last of their applicants on their exhaustive interview list, stood in the centre of the world in her prim clothes, her carpet bag in hand, her umbrella in the other. Mrs Dowling watched as she set the bag neatly down, and put the umbrella on the coffee table.

“May I?” she asked. She was the first nanny to have done so all day, as most of them were rather worried about appearing too self-important with such impressive employers, and Mrs Dowling shot up from her seat, holding Warlock out like he was some sort of ticking time bomb, wrapped neatly in his swaddling clothes[1]. “My name,” the nanny said softly, gently taking the baby in her hands and holding him against the crook of her arm, her thumb touching against his chin, “is Nanny Ashtoreth. You might call me Lilith, if you like, Mr and Mrs Dowling.”

“Lily?” Mrs Dowling repeated.

“ _Lilith_ ,” Nanny repeated with emphasis, smiling in a somewhat unpleasant way that made Mrs Dowling and Mr Dowling shiver for very different reasons, each incognizant of the other’s response. “It’s a family name.”

“Oh,” said Mrs Dowling, staring with wonder at her baby. He had stopped crying. He had ceased even to grizzle. He was looking, his eyes as wide as dinnerplates, up at his new nanny, who was gently stroking his cheek with her still-gloved thumb. “And you— you’ve been a nanny for a long time, then?”

“Oh, a _very_ long time,” Nanny said, with a secretive smile that made Mr Dowling’s blood hot. It was rather hot blood in any case, and didn’t need much encouragement. “On and off. You have my references.”

“Sure, sure,” said Mr Dowling, “they look great. And, uh, if you don’t mind my asking, Mrs Ashtoreth—”

“Ms,” Nanny said primly.

“ _Ms_ Ashtoreth,” said Mr Dowling, although he thought “Ms” was an honorific for lesbians and dominatrixes, “how old are you?”

“Goodness,” Nanny said, and Mr Dowling imagined passionately that her gaze flitted up sultrily to meet his, although it was impossible to tell, behind her dark glasses. “One never asks a lady’s age, Mr Dowling.”

“Doesn’t one?” Mr Dowling asked, somewhat powerlessly. He wasn’t used to people telling him things he should ever do.

“ _No_.”

“And those— those sunglasses,” Mrs Dowling asked. “Er… Those are… nice.”

“I’m afraid I have rather sensitive eyes, Mrs Dowling,” Nanny said, with a tone of quiet apology. “Even normal electric bulbs can do me rather a bit of damage – the sunglasses are medicinal, you see.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Mrs Dowling said. “Oh, well, if they’re medicinal, um, yes, of course, of course you’d have them—”

“Mr and Mrs Dowling,” Nanny said, rocking Warlock in her arms in a sort of easy, absent way, as if such movements were the habitual manner of six thousand years of practice (on and off), “I must tell you something about myself, I think. I consider myself to be a _traditional_ nanny. I don’t hold with silly nonsense: I believe in discipline, in care, and in educating a child to one’s best degree. These young years are oh-so-formative to a child’s development: I cannot bear to take them with any less gravity than which they _ought_ be treated. And may I just say, Mrs Dowling?”

Mrs Dowling was on the edge of her seat, somewhat mystified by Nanny’s accent and quiet, commanding demeanour. She nodded.

“You have the most beautiful little wain I’ve ever laid eyes upon,” Nanny said. “Look at him, sleeping so soundly, and in a stranger’s arms, at that! A darling child.”

Mrs Dowling’s head was spinning at the prospect of Warlock being described as “sleeping”, as at the five-month mark, so exhausted she barely felt she could stand some days, let alone sit in a room alone with the boy and entertain him, she had been beginning to suspect her son might be the Antichrist.

“You have kids of your own?” Mr Dowling asked.

Nanny sighed. It was a wistful sigh, full to the brim with a quiet longing that made Mrs Dowling’s heart pang, even not understanding the call to motherhood now having answered it, and made other parts of Mr Dowling’s anatomy do something very unlike panging, as he had never felt a pang anywhere in his life, except in his trick elbow when he’d taken a hard fall during a college football game, and was quite unaccustomed to feeling that many emotions when strange women were involved. Or familiar women, for that matter.

“No,” Nanny said quietly. “No, I’m afraid I’ve rather devoted my life to the care of other people’s children, Mrs Dowling. I’ve been too focused upon my duties, and have never taken time to seek out a husband, but I am satisfied with my work, my dear. Such is the path the Lord lays out for us.”

This was, for several reasons, a very powerful performance. It evoked such quiet melancholy – and yet, deep maternity – that instantly, Mrs Dowling shuddered at the thought of asking even the smallest of questions upon the subject, and respected Nanny quite entirely. This was as Crowley had intended it, practising the speech several times in front of a mirror. Mr Dowling had not really considered any feelings to do with motherhood – in his mind, women should want it, but if they didn’t, that only made them safer to sleep with – but _did_ like the idea that Nanny Ashtoreth was unmarried. It wouldn’t do to have some husband come sniffing about another man’s house, even if his wife was employed there.

Both Mr and Mrs Dowling noted the use of the word “Lord” and liked it immensely – they were Christians, and they liked the idea of having other Christians about, especially Christians who, as Nanny did, seemed to have such faith.

Nanny, of course, was not a Christian, and her faith was in ill-repute. The ambiguity of the title “Lord” was lost on Mr and Mrs Dowling.

“Why don’t I pass him back to you?” Nanny asked, raising her eyebrows just slightly.

Mr and Mrs Dowling shared a look.

In Mr Dowling’s face was a look of determination, a decision made; in Mrs Dowling’s, there was desperation, and _certainty_. They nodded together, a tiny, little nod.

“Why don’t I just show you up to the nursery, Mrs— Ms Ashtoreth?” Mrs Dowling asked, standing.

“Oh, but the rest of the interview, my dear—”

“Oh,” Mr Dowling said, touching Nanny’s arm. It lingered there for longer than Crowley felt it needed to, and he had to hold his tongue to keep from hissing out a little noise. “I don’t think that’s necessary. You’re hired, Miss Ashtoreth.”

“ _Ms_ ,” Nanny repeated.

“Oh, right,” Mr Dowling said, with a friendly wink that made Crowley want to snap his neck. “Of course.”

\--

Life in the Dowling household was different to Crowley’s sleek flat in London.

It ran on a constant schedule, bolstered by an army of household staff such as the like Crowley had never seen for over a hundred years: the butler had two underbutlers, there were half a dozen housemaids, the kitchen was staffed with a crew of a dozen, there was the handyman, there were four chauffeurs, and then there were the bodyguards, of which there must have been at _least_ twenty, but who all were so similar (sharing, as they did, haircuts, uniforms, and personalities) that Crowley struggled to tell them apart.

Unlike Aziraphale, who was set up out in a little cottage on the grounds, and around whom flowers were already blooming despite the fact that he didn’t know his secateurs from his weedkiller, which he had already brightly said he wasn’t going to use, Crowley had a bedroom on the same corridor as Warlock’s bedroom and nursery, with his own bathroom. He had his own bedsheets, had insisted he would do his own washing, and he had cultivated a very careful wardrobe for Nanny Ashtoreth to use – finely made, well-cared-for, but not flashy, not overly sexual, nothing to draw too much attention. He went for clothes that were just a little bit too sleek to be entirely drab, which were aggressively sensible. Skirts that came to six inches below the knee; jackets and coats that made rain think twice before daring to fall on him; flat shoes that were shined to a polish, but didn’t have an elevated heel in sight.

He’d misjudged it, he thought.

Or—

He’d misjudged _men_.

Crowley wasn’t ignorant to sex, and he certainly wasn’t ignorant to the sexual desires of humanity. They liked all sorts, so they did, and that was their prerogative. Crowley had had sex, a few times, to try it, but it hadn’t really struck him as very interesting when you didn’t really care much about the person you were doing it with, and he had never made himself care that much about a human. That sort of thing was dangerous.

But he’d thought—

Well.

If he’d been the pretty au pair type, people be able to talk over him, act like he had no authority. Nanny Ashtoreth, _she_ had authority, she had even Mrs Dowling doing as she said, respecting that this was a woman with long-term experience in childcare, and people obeyed Nanny’s orders, crisply delivered as they were.

And she wasn’t _sexy_.

For Chr— For _someone’s_ sake, he’d watched _Mary Poppins_ again, and reread _Nurse Matilda_ , on top rereading of all the child development books and parenting books he already happened to have in his flat, for no reason at all, really, and that were kept in the back of a locked, secret cupboard with the books he _absolutely did not own_ on fostering and adoption.

He’d gone for _dark_ , yes, but not _sexy_.

Flat shoes! Thick stockings! Tweed! Black tweed, yes, but still _tweed_!

But one of the underbutlers had brought her case up to her room from the taxi, and he’d looked long and hard on the black silk sheets on Ashtoreth’s bed, and he’d… _smirked_. One of the chauffeurs had made a quip about Nanny giving him a spanking if he was bad. And they _looked_ at him, they looked at him constantly, craned their heads to watch him as he walked down a corridor.

It was, for the most part, subtle. It was just in the way they looked, hungry and wanting, and the way they turned to each other and laughed, or whispered. It was the way it felt like they were devouring him with their eyes. They kept thinking about _BDSM_ and _whips_ and _leather_ , and what sort of fucking man had a fetish for a nanny, anyway? He was here to look after the _baby_.

Crowley, quite unintentionally, was tempting again, so it seemed, but he wasn’t the snake this time, softly encouraging anybody in the wrong direction, coaxing them to take that little leap, to reach out and grab.

He was the apple.

An object to look at, to admire, and then to reach out, to pluck, to devour.

He became paranoid about it, about how quickly it seemed to spread through the male staff, how swiftly even the most respectful of the younger lads suddenly became full of wry humour. The girls were a little better, but they were… _catty_ , at times.

He was suddenly just—

 _Aware_.

Was anything too revealing? Too implicit? Too sexual?

Even Nanny’s night dresses, he’d picked because they had a high collar and long sleeves and the skirt came down to the _ankles_ , and now he was worried that _those_ were too sexy for the idiots in this household, even with his thick red paisley dressing gown (matched to his carpet bag) overtop.

He mentioned it to Aziraphale just once, after they’d been with the Dowlings for two months.

“I don’t like how the men look at me,” he’d muttered in an undertone, when the two of them were in London for the day, on their respective days off, dining at the Ritz, and Crowley’s legs felt strangely naked in just skinny jeans, instead of tights or stockings, with no skirt, no layers to cover him up. He couldn’t stop fidgeting, feeling like there was too much of him on display. “Makes my skin crawl.”

“Well, my _dear_ ,” Aziraphale had said, in a sort of high-and-mighty tone that had made Crowley’s stomach do an anxious flip. “I really don’t know what you expected.”

He didn’t mention it again, after that.

\--

Mr and Mrs Dowling did not, Crowley discovered, have a great deal of interest in their son. They loved him, of course. On his first birthday, they doted over him, brought him out a cake, bounced him on their knees. Mrs Dowling kissed him on the forehead or on the cheek when Crowley was going past with the boy in his arms, and Mr Dowling ruffled his hair.

Mrs Dowling kept breastfeeding him herself for a while, but her chest _was_ painful, and Crowley could hardly fault her for swapping over to the pump as soon as she could, and then to the formula, particularly when Warlock’s teeth began to come through, but… Well. She didn’t really want to do it herself, once it was a bottle, once she didn’t _have_ to do it herself.

And she was tired. Crowley knew that she was tired, but—

Well.

Mr Dowling went away for long stretches, came back. He didn’t ask after the boy when he came in, asked after miscellany instead, esoterica, asked about sports teams or bills or maintenance, on the rare occasion he asked questions at all. Mostly, he talked, about his work, about his schooldays, about his friends, about himself. Crowley saw Mrs Dowling’s face when he passed by the couple, sometimes, like she was holding her breath, waiting for her chance to join the conversation, but it never came.

Warlock began to talk. Just babbling, and then speech, in little dribs and drabs, basic words.

The first word would be burned into Crowley’s mind for eternity, seeing Warlock reach out with two grabbing hands, and say, “ _Nanny_.” His first word! His first word, and asking for _him_!

Crowley had always liked children.

He’d liked them even in the beginning, seeing Cain and Abel rush and wrestle together like lion cubs in the grass. Look how that had turned out. But he _liked_ children: he loved the way babies smelled and the weight they were in your arms, the way they looked around with those big, intelligent eyes, trying to understand the universe; he liked it when they learned to toddle around, when they grabbed and tugged at the world to see how it responded; he _loved_ it when they started to ask questions.

And here!

Here!

A baby, his _little boy_ , Warlock, saying, _Nanny!_

He’d been in the clouds for days.

Which was why he’d forgotten himself, sitting in the playroom, seeing Aziraphale bring in the boy with one of the junior gardeners at his side, and the way he’d leaned forward in his seat, and _smiled_. “My darling boy,” Crowley had said, throwing open his arms as Warlock had laughed and tottered clumsily toward him, “come and sit on Nanny’s knee.”

He’d heard the junior gardener laugh under his breath, heard him with supernatural hearing say, “I wouldn’t mind doing that myself.”

And the smile had fallen away from his face, he’d felt like he’d been drenched in cold water, even though he’d forced the smile back onto his mouth as Warlock came close enough, leaning forward to catch the young lad under the arms and pull him up into his lap. He saw the look of disgust on Brother Francis’ ordinarily genial features.

“You and I, my lad,” he heard him say as they left, “are gonna have a _talk_.”

“My dear Warlock,” Crowley said, keeping his smile frozen on his face and bouncing his knees, watching the boy laugh. “You’re oh-so-clever, you know? And you know what you’re going to do with all that cleverness, hm? You’re going to lay waste to the chauvinists of the world, yes you are…” _And all the rest_ , his mind added, bitterly, but how could he be bitter, when a little baby was smiling at him like that? _And the rest of it, too_.

\--

“You really mustn’t get so attached, you know,” Aziraphale said quietly.

“I’m not attached,” Crowley said. “He’s the Antichrist.”

Aziraphale said nothing. He just did that little thing where he pressed his lips together and raised his eyebrows a bit, and Crowley felt furious, and guilty, and embarrassed.

“Stop projecting,” he muttered, and took advantage of Aziraphale’s indignant gasp to pluck the glacé cherry off his cake.

“I told Harry off,” Aziraphale murmured. “Do they always talk to you like that?”

“Men, aren’t they?” Crowley said, shrugging his shoulders.

“We might as well be men, Crowley.”

 _“You_ might as well be.”

Aziraphale frowned, furrowing his brow. “What ever is that supposed to mean?”

“I need to water my plants,” Crowley muttered, and left Aziraphale alone in the café.

That night, he fell asleep in the rocking chair in the nursery, Warlock soundly asleep on his chest, and he was so impossibly happy that he hated it. He hated it, loathed it, abhorred it, that he should be so, _so_ happy, with the Antichrist burbling quietly in his sleep, his little hands fisted in the red paisley of Nanny’s dressing gown, his little heart beating away.

Crowley didn’t think he’d ever slept so soundly.

[1] Of course, in Crowley’s mind, this was precisely what he was.


	2. Unresisting Temptation

James Cagney was new to the Dowling household. He was a kitchen porter, and he’d gotten the job through his friend Rambo (née Arthur), who was one of the bodyguards on the staff. He didn’t have a criminal record, wasn’t a violent lad, and he worked _hard_. Besides, he liked the idea of being a kitchen porter, anyway – he saw what the chefs did, and the sous chef, Jimmy Thwaites, had said he’d teach him a thing or two, and see if they couldn’t turn a chef out of James himself.

It was a good house, all told.

The actual people that owned it – some American fella, a big politician over in the States, and his bird – were sound enough, hired a big staff, stayed out of the way, but the real banter was in the service corridors, which they still had because it was one of them big, posh houses that still thought servants should be out of the way.

The lads in the kitchen were all _great_ , even if some of them were French, and they had a lot of laughs, a lot of banter – James even picked up a few of the choice French curse words, and there was nothing like the laughs that came out of the kitchen when Chef called him “un _bish_ ”, and James had sworn _“Putain!”_

And some of the girls were cute, too.

There were quite a few maids, a lot of them pretty, and one of the chauffeurs was a girl – lesbian, obviously, but she was alright to look at – and there was the head housekeeper, who must have been fit in her day, and still had a great pair of tits, even though the face wasn’t up to much.

And then, there was Nanny Ashtoreth.

James had seen her when he was on his fag break, coming in from the city. He’d been sat on the step, and he’d watched as the cab had drawn up, watched the lady get out of it with the sort of prim, proper movements ladies had – and she _was_ a lady, there was no doubt about that. Severe, and kind of plain in the face, with hard cheekbones and a square nose and thin lips that were painted a bit too dark to do her any favours, but there was something about her, the way she moved, with her purse held tightly at her side. And she wore a _hat_ , and sunglasses, which he later found out were ‘cause her eyes were fucked up somehow.

She moved with quiet determination, and James had taken in her flat shoes – better in heels, he thought, a girl always looked better in heels, even if she was too old to be a girl and was more in MILF territory, but then again, she was _already_ too tall, and it’d be worse if she had heels on – and her tight stockings, her calves, the way her pencil skirt came right against her legs and moved when she did, came in against her hips and her bony arse. She wore too many layers, so you couldn’t get a good look at her chest, but James bet she had nice tits, as skinny as she was – skinny MILFs didn’t sag so much, ‘cause their tits didn’t have as far to go.

She stopped just before the doorstep, holding her purse under her arm and neatly taking off her gloves. Nice hands. Not really very dainty – they were a bit mannish, really, but she looked like she kept care of her nails, and she didn’t have them stupid claws a lot of women seemed to think men liked.

“Alright?” James asked, tipping his head back slightly.

She gave him a sort of _look_ , and he felt he could feel her eyes flitting over him where he sat on the steps, smoking his fag. He spread his legs apart a little, leaning back to grin up at her, and her lips pressed together.

James had shagged MILFs before, of course – there was a woman around the corner from him who sold Avon, and she’d been gagging for it, and he’d shagged his mate Ben’s mum a few times, when she’d been divorcing Ben’s dad last year. He was what MILFs _liked_ – fit, good in the face, muscled.

“Young man,” she said crisply, her voice sort of low and broody, and with a Scotch accent that made his cock given an appreciative twitch, “I would thank you not to smoke so near to the house. There’s a smoking area over there, in that bandstand sort of thing, on the crest of the hill.”

“Why, you allergic?”

“No smoking in the house,” she said, in steely tones. “Nor _near_ to the house.”

“Alright, no need to freak out about it,” James muttered, taking a drag.

“And if I see you’ve left your cigarette butts at the doorstep, my dear, you will be finding them in _very_ unpleasant places.”

“S’only the staff entrance,” James murmured, with a little grin, but when she stood to walk up the steps, he got up first, standing on the top step to make sure he was a bit taller than her, looking down at her a bit. He watched her lips part a bit, saw her tongue. _Yeah_. “Who’re you, then?”

“You may call me Nanny Ashtoreth. New to the kitchen staff, I presume?”

“Yeah. I’m the new porter, James. Cagney. You’re not old enough to be that kid’s nan, are you?”

“Flattering, I’m sure, Mr Cagney, but I am his _hired_ nanny,” Nanny Ashtoreth said. “Do excuse me.”

“S’that your real hair?”

“Yes.”

“Carpet match the drapes?”

“I’m going to give you one more chance to step out of my way,” Ashtoreth said in a soft, dangerous whisper. “And then I will call for the butler to discipline you.”

“I’d rather _you_ disciplined me,” James said, with a charming grin and a wink. “You do spankings at this time of the morning, or is it just after hours?” He’d have gone on, but his cigarette suddenly burned to the end, and he hissed in pain as it burnt the side of his hand, making him stumble.

Ashtoreth didn’t even look back at him to see if he was alright, just walked straight past. _Bitch_.

\--

Mr Farraday, who was in charge of the bodyguards and the chauffeurs, also had a say on most of the runnings in the house, and could even overrule the butler, Mr Sneep, if he wanted to, because he could say it was a matter of security. He was an old boy from Glasgow, a big tough fella with a ragged scar on the side of his jaw, and he laid into James like nobody’s business.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, eh?” he demanded, having shoved into the kitchen and thrust James back against one of the walls, making the pans on the shelves clatter ominously behind him. “Old Francis just said to me you were harassing Ms Lilith on the fucking doorstep – d’you think you can get away with that, you little shite?”

“ _Harassing_ her?” James repeated, infuriated, “I wasn’t harassing _shit_. Give a bird a compliment and that’s harassing her, is it?”

“Lilith Ashtoreth,” Farraday said, shoving James in the chest and making him cough out a noise, “is your fucking superior in this househould. D’you understand that? There’s a hierarchy here, laddie, and you’re at the fucking bottom of it, so if I hear you’ve so much as looked at that woman again, I’ll have your arse on a fucking pike at the house’s gates, you understand me?”

“ _She_ say anything?” James demanded.

Mr Farraday scowled, his grizzled expression twisting as he glared down at James.

“No, she didn’t, did she? Just that Francis guy watching and then saying just because I had a chat with her that I was _harassing_ her. That’s bollocks, I bet he wasn’t even close enough to hear what we were saying!”

“Don’t. Talk. To the lady,” Mr Farraday growled. “That _clear_?”

James grit his teeth. “Yessir,” he muttered.

When he’d gone, the rest of the lads in the kitchen, who’d been watching wide-eyed, all burst out laughing at him, and Jimmy the sous chef came and clapped him on the back.

“I’d not worry,” he muttered, ruffling James’ hair. “That Farraday’s fucking new, he is, and he’s got one on for _Miss Lilith,_ and the ugly gardener has, too. She’s a cold bitch, though, isn’t interested in anyone. One of the young gardeners just flirted with her the last day and Old Francis had a right go at him. She’s just a fucking tease.”

“She’s _fit_ ,” James muttered. “Doesn’t she look like one of them dominatrixes out of a porno?”

“Oh, don’t get me _started_ ,” said Gordo sympathetically, chopping vegetables with quick, sharp movements of the knife. “Takes me five seconds if I wank with Nanny in mind.”

“Takes you five seconds anyway,” Jimmy said, and Gordo laughed. “She’s a fucking ride, though, so she is – she came in soaked from some walk with the boy and his friends one day, and I peeked in through the side door when she was in one of the drawing rooms. Watched her hike her skirt up to undo her garters and slide her stockings off. What I wouldn’t give to have gone in there and pushed her onto her arse so I could—”

“You’re so full of _shit_ ,” Gordo said, laughing. “As if she wears stockings.”

“She does! I saw ‘em!”

“She wears _tights_ , you bellend—”

“She wouldn’t wear anything with me,” James said, and they all fell into laughter once again.

\--

“Why don’t you just tell them off?” Aziraphale asked, laughing as he caught Warlock under the arms and lifted him up into the air again, giggling as he went. Aziraphale was lying back on the ground, his shoulders to the grass, although Crowley was aware that no mud would cling to him. In any case, it would likely be an improvement on the truly awful attire of Brother Francis.

He was talking – as he had been talking, at length, in a kind of irritatingly calm way – about one of the new bodyguards leaning in to exaggeratedly smell Nanny’s perfume as he’d done his customary check of her coming into the house. Mr Farraday, a gentleman whose hiring Aziraphale had influenced and the singular gentleman amongst them, had smacked the young man upside the head, but Crowley had felt the humiliation of it all day, following him about like the weight of his sins. And now, obviously, Aziraphale felt they should _talk_ about it.

“Indeed, why don’t I?” Crowley replied archly, shifting her knees slightly to the side and leaning back on the bench, looking out over the bright green grass. It was several weeks after Warlock’s second birthday, and they were still enjoying the last days of August. “Why don’t I tell them nicely to stop, hm? Or even better, why don’t I _order_ them to stop?”

Crowley wondered when it would start to show. He knew he didn’t really come into his _powers_ until he was eleven, but it would start before then – only, how long before? Would he have little, subtle things before the big stuff started coming in, or would it all start in spurts just a little before the Apocalypse?

He wasn’t sure. He certainly couldn’t ask. And, although he had looked, there were no parenting books on raising the Antichrist.

Not the _real_ one anyway.

“I don’t see the need for sarcasm,” Aziraphale said, setting Warlock’s feet down on his knees and marching him on them, and Warlock laughed even louder, wriggling with delight in Aziraphale’s arms.

“Because if I rise to it, Francis,” Crowley said, “it will get worse. The moment I raise my voice, they’ll find it titillating, they’ll want to see if they can make me react even more. And if I ask them _nicely_ to stop, they’ll say they’ll do so – for a price. And it doesn’t help when _you_ interfere, getting Farraday to shout at them at every opportunity.”

“You could _scare_ them,” Aziraphale murmured.

“Oh, could I? You don’t think it would raise suspicions about good old Nanny Ashtoreth if she started frightening the staff with omens and funny turns? Besides, I shan’t. Not in front of the boy. We’re meant to be _balanced_. I can do little things if I’m sure they won’t be noticed, but not—”

“Aren’t you a lovely little man?” Aziraphale was saying. “Aren’t you just a darling, hm?”

“Nanny,” Warlock said.

Crowley felt his lips twitch at the way Aziraphale’s face fell, his brows knitting into an expression of consternation.

“No, my dear boy,” he said, wounded. “Francis.”

“ _Want Nanny_ ,” Warlock replied stubbornly.

Crowley cleared his throat, getting neatly to his feet and holding his arms out for the boy, and while pouting furiously – an expression that did not suit Aziraphale, and suited the face of Brother Francis even less – handed him over. Warlock threw his arms around Crowley’s neck, laying his head on his shoulder.

“Nanny,” he said, with world-weary satisfaction.

“My darling,” Crowley replied, only slightly smugly, and patted his back.

“Time for nap.”

Crowley and Aziraphale, as one, reached into their respective pockets and withdrew their watches, each of them looking to the watch face. The watch of Brother Francis was the most battered of Aziraphale’s collection, a heavily scraped and dented little gold number he had picked up in the 60s; Nanny Ashtoreth’s was a fine, silver piece with very delicate etchings upon the side, showing vine leaves and grapes. Each read – for Aziraphale and Crowley had made their habit of rewinding their watches together since they had started buying watches – twenty-five past one precisely.

Warlock went down for his nap at half past the hour, to come up again at around two thirty.

“Uncanny,” Crowley murmured.

“We could start setting our watches by _him_ ,” Aziraphale said.

“It’s a good sign,” Crowley murmured, patting the back of the boy’s hair.

“Is it?” Aziraphale asked, his ridiculously bushy eyebrows rising expectantly. “For whose side?”

Crowley gave Aziraphale a pointed look that somehow managed to be very, very sharp, despite coming from behind his dark glasses. “For his _development_ , Francis,” he said darkly. “It means he has a good sense of time, of schedule. A keen and timely internal clock.”

“The Apocalypse won’t be late, then?” Aziraphale asked, and Crowley nudged his side with his boot, but he couldn’t help the slight smile on his face, and Aziraphale smiled up at him, smiled back. It was… startlingly domestic, really. Crowley felt a deep warmth in his chest, at the very idea of it, the fact that the two of them were here, were raising a little boy, _together,_ just as he’d never dared to so much as dream of, and yet—

Well.

These weren’t exactly the circumstances anyone would want.

“Good day to you, Brother Francis,” Nanny Ashtoreth said, in tones of poisoned honey.

“And a very good day to you too, my dear,” replied the gardener, with the sun shining out of his face.

\--

It wasn’t the first time someone had made a bet to seduce Ashtoreth.

Two of the chauffeurs had had a bet on the first few months he’d come here, and that had been the start of it, really – Crowley had been… Well, he’d been sort of _flattered_ , at first, the way the two lads brought her flowers from the garden in turns, and one of them – Ainsley – had complimented every outfit he wore, one week. Not in a sexual way, not at all – just said how he liked the fabrics, how he liked how traditional the clothes were, how well she looked in them.

Then one night, after Crowley had just finished putting Warlock to bed, he’d caught him by the wrist in the stairwell, leaned him up against the wall and said, “Christ, you’re sexy. Whenever you tell the young lad it’s time for bed, my cock gets hard. Says, _is it time for us too?”_

That had rather soured the pleasantry of any previous compliments.

“Let go,” Crowley had murmured.

“Why? You don’t like me? You like Gary better?”

“Mr Rodham, I am here to provide a service to the Dowlings. Not to… dally with anybody.”

“So do a service for me,” he’d said, and crushed their mouths together. Crowley had grunted, had nearly just _killed_ the man before he thought better of it, and then had kicked hard with his knee, bringing it up between Ainsley’s legs and making him go down wheezing.

“Do _not_ ,” Crowley had hissed, “presume to touch me again, you disgusting little weasel.”

“You _bitch_!”

And then, oh, _then_ , the talk had really started in earnest.

The men had already been _looking_ , but then they’d started talking, too, had talked about Ashtoreth being frigid and tight, but talked just as much about how good she must be in bed, speculating about what it must be like to have her. They did it, _intentionally_ , within her earshot, so that she’d be walking down the corridor and hear a snatch of, “ _bet she likes it when you shove her right down into the bed, finger her arse while you come in her twat,”_ that would catch in Crowley’s head all day.

He started wearing trousers, for a week, just to see if it made a difference, but one of the chefs had told her, in a conversational way, how good they made his arse look, and that had made him cringe.

And then, there was James Cagney and Jimmy Thwaites.

He’d gone down past the kitchen to go down to the laundry room, had heard them… _Talking_. And the talk was bad, but he couldn’t help stopping, couldn’t help listening, and feel his skin crawl more with every passing moment, feel so much more disgusted. It was similar to Hell, in a way, the feeling that everyone was always watching him, talking about him, waiting for the chance to rip him apart and take him down a peg, but that was never _sexual_ , demons weren’t _sexual_ like humans were, they didn’t wield it like a weapon, the way humans did.

“I’m great with MILFs,” James was saying casually. “If she’d just let me go down on her, maybe she’d lighten the fuck up a bit. No wonder she’s such a bitch all the time if she’s so bloody frigid.”

“I wouldn’t mind her choosing to be a frigid bitch if she wasn’t such a fucking tease about it,” Jimmy said.

He kept listening.

It was like he couldn’t stop.

\--

It was cold outside today, and although Warlock had been with his daily walk around the grounds with Brother Francis, initially holding the gardener’s hand to totter along beside him, and then being carried in the gardener’s arms, he was now safely ensconced inside with Nanny.

He liked Brother Francis. The old man was soft and warm, and had a more comfortable lap than Nanny did, and when they walked along, he would talk and talk, pointing out all the trees and flowers and grass and mushrooms and even animals.

Animals would come right up to Brother Francis – bunnies and birdies and doggies and kitties, and even, once, a deer. Warlock had been spellbound in his arms as Brother Francis had reached out, gently touching the hair on the head of the doe, and had said, “Now, my dear boy, we must be kind to all God’s creatures? Isn’t she beautiful?”

“Bootiful,” Warlock had repeated dutifully, and reached out to touch the hair on her head too. It wasn’t quite as soft as he’d expected.

“You are so lucky to live in a world like this one, with lovely things like her, my dear child,” Francis had whispered. “You must make sure to protect it.” Then, Warlock had sneezed, and the deer had yelped and run away. It was one of his earliest memories, later on, and people were often quick to say it must have been some childhood imagining.

Nanny was sitting on the floor across from him, her knees neatly together, her legs to the side of her body, her hands folded in her lap. She sat in ways that other women in the house didn’t sit, but Warlock didn’t mind, didn’t mind the ways Nanny was different to the others. Warlock focused on the game in front of him, trying to press the blocks into the right places, get them in—

One of the new staff kept walking back and forth in the corridor, and now he came into the room and looked at Nanny.

“Um, Ms Ashtoreth? Could I ask you to help me for a moment?”

Warlock looked at Nanny, at the hesitation in her face, the tightness in her lips. She didn’t like it when the men talked to her. Warlock was okay, and Brother Francis she didn’t mind, but sometimes Nanny got all frowny when men in the household talked to her, and Warlock didn’t like it.

“Nanny,” Warlock said, and Nanny turned away from the new kitchen porter, giving him a smile.

“You’re doing so well, my darling boy,” she said warmly, and picked up one of the round blocks. “This one, now.”

Warlock took it.

“No,” Nanny said to the porter. “Ask one of the maids.”

“They’re all busy,” the porter said, sort of whining it, but he was smiling. “But you know where everything is, _Nanny_.”

“ _Busy_ ,” Nanny said.

The porter muttered something as he left, and Warlock didn’t hear what it was, but it made Nanny look sad, and Warlock shoved the toy aside, clambering up and onto her knees. She laughed, softly, and pressed her mouth to the top of his head, wrapping her arms around him.

“My darling boy,” she murmured. “You will wreak such destruction upon the world for your Nanny, won’t you?”

“Yes, Nanny,” Warlock mumbled, more because he was being asked a question than because he really understood what it meant, and pressed his face into the soft tweed of her jacket.

That night, after she’d put Warlock down to sleep and was cleaning up in the playroom, appreciating the mindless, calming work of putting things back on shelves, James caught her by surprise.

\--

“Did you _burn_ one of the kitchen porters?” Aziraphale asked in a hiss as he came into the staff kitchen. It was late at night, and Crowley had been up very late, trying to set down a grizzling Warlock who just hadn’t wanted Nanny to leave him alone in his bed. “James Cagney?”

“Don’t be silly,” Crowley said, flicking on the kettle and pulling down the cocoa for Aziraphale. It was… He wouldn’t admit it, but it was sort of _nice_ , living like this, like a human. It was less convenient, true, but there was something calming about the rhythm of it all, of not using miracles for everything. “He burned it on a hot pan. Stupid boy. Should know better, as a kitchen porter.”

“The boy’s going to lose the _hand_ ,” Aziraphale said, coming around the other edge of the counter, and Crowley sipped from his mug of black tea, arching an eyebrow. The sunglasses were, for the moment, set aside on the kitchen counter, and Aziraphale looked into the yellow-orange of Crowley’s eyes, dark and foreboding.

“Perhaps,” he said softly, “it will teach him not to put the other where it doesn’t belong.”

“What could he _possibly_ have done?” Aziraphale demanded.

“You did suggest it,” Crowley whispered. “Scaring them. He’s scared now, isn’t he?”

“What did he—”

“That young man has been bothering me for the past few weeks. Do you want to know why, Francis?” Crowley stepped closer, and Aziraphale’s breath hitched at the way he stepped directly into his space, glaring at him, their noses nearly touching. “I heard them, you see. Young James was talking to James Senior, the sous chef. Jimmy was complaining about how Ashtoreth is a bitch, and a tease. How it’s such a pleasure when she bends down to get something for the boy, although her arse looks a bit bony. But, you know, he said, I bet her tits are magnificent, to make up for it. And _James_ said, I bet I could get her to give me a handy at least, and put my face in her muff. MILFs are easy to get eating out of your hand, and I bet her bed is right cold, without a man in it.”

Aziraphale felt slightly sick, but Crowley didn’t stop: his breath was warm where it brushed over Aziraphale’s lips, and it smelt of the tea.

“Kept asking me to help him find things. Reach things. Told me what a trouble he had sleeping, big house like this, never knowing who was awake and who wasn’t. Acted the innocent little chap, so bashful with _scary_ Nanny Ashtoreth, after Farraday gave him that talking-to. And do you know what he did then, Francis, when he saw me cleaning up the playroom, and leaning to set something up on a shelf?”

“No,” Aziraphale whispered.

“He slid his _hand_ up my _skirt_ , along the inside of my thigh, and _up._ ” Crowley’s voice was hard as steel. “So, yes, Francis, I burned him. I waited until he was cleaning up in the kitchen tonight and made sure a cold pan was hot enough to melt through the skin when he touched it. I’m _glad_ he’s going to lose the hand. I hope the shock of it kills him.”

“Execution?” Aziraphale asked. “Just for that?”

“ _Just_?” Crowley repeated.

“I know,” Aziraphale said softly, “that the men in this household treat you badly, Ashtoreth, but you can’t—”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s so _violent_ , Cr— Ashtoreth, you’re not usually so violent, it’s— It’s wrong.” And Crowley wasn’t violent. He didn’t _like_ to be violent. He liked to inconvenient, or nasty, or ironic, but never violent, and he couldn’t help but worry at the idea of a Crowley who wanted to be violent. How hurt must he feel, if he wanted to lash out like that? Did he feel guilty? Aziraphale didn’t want him to feel guilty, or in pain, or _any_ of it.

“ _Demon_ ,” Crowley whispered against his mouth, and the word touched Aziraphale’s skin, flickered over his lips with prickling fire. He suppressed the urge to reach up to try to brush it away. “I’ll be as wrong as I like.”

“ _Did_ you like it?” Aziraphale demanded. “Did it make you feel better? That boy is nineteen, scarcely knows better, and you _maimed_ him, just for—”

“Just for shoving his hand up a woman’s skirt to grab at her cunt? Yes, angel. Yes, I did.”

“What happened to setting a good example for the boy?”

“You’re right,” Crowley murmured, and smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile, all teeth and hard eyes. “Justice should be your prerogative, shouldn’t it?” His hand was on Aziraphale’s chest, and Aziraphale saw Crowley’s gaze flicker down to his chest, his expression faltering, no doubt at the way Aziraphale’s heart was hammering beneath his smock. Aziraphale saw Crowley’s parted lips, his momentary expression, and he wanted to say, please, please, Crowley, I’m not trying to hurt you, I just want to understand, I want you to feel _better_ and I’m just not sure this was the way, I wish I could fix it—

Crowley pulled his hand back as the kettle clicked off.

“You can make your own cocoa,” he murmured, and walked past Aziraphale, his dressing gown not swishing at all, like it would if he was walking the way he normally did. Nanny Ashtoreth walked straight as anything, all severity, with no swishing in sight.

“Oh,” Aziraphale sighed to himself, and put his head in his hands.

\--

Warlock noticed, as he got older, how Nanny was with the men in the household. They came and they tried to talk to her, sometimes, and Nanny didn’t like it, walked away from them or didn’t say anything. Sometimes, they’d come and interrupt when her and Warlock were playing together, and ask for her to come and get something out of a tall cupboard, or ask if she’d be able to help them with things later, and she always said no.

And they talked about her, too.

He knew that they did, because sometimes he came into a room and heard her name, and if he asked what they were saying about his nanny, they’d tell him it wasn’t for little boys to hear, and that he shouldn’t worry his head about it.

One time, a chauffeur told him he was lucky to be able to put his head on Nanny’s chest whenever he wanted, and that he’d like to be able to do that. He’d laughed very loudly. Warlock hadn’t understood what that meant.

\--

“Brother Francis,” Warlock asked, when he was to be six years old in two months precisely, “how come Nanny doesn’t like men?”

The gardener looked up from the roses he had been admiring, and which the nanny in question would acerbically say were in dire need of a prune. “Did she say that do you?”

“No. But she don’t talk with men. ‘Cept you and Mr Farraday. And she talks to Mommy, and to the maids. But Jeff the driver tried to get her to come sit down with him yesterday, and she went away. Walked away. And that’s rude, and Nanny doesn’t like to be rude, normally. She says it’s better to be really nasty to someone than to just be rude without thinking. And she said she’s better _at_ it.”

“Oh, well, I’m sure it’s nothing,” Brother Francis said, shrugging his rounded shoulders. “That woman can be rather selective about the company she keeps, hm? She isn’t like you and I, Warlock, a friend to all. She likes to be on her own sometimes.”

“Mmm,” Warlock said. It wasn’t a very convincing answer. “Brother Francis?”

“Hm?”

“What does frid-jid mean?”

Brother Francis’ jaw dropped.

\--

“What did you tell him?” Crowley asked. They were in Crowley’s bedroom, although Aziraphale had had to assure him four times over that he would be completely invisible when he left, so that nobody said anything. Crowley was lying on his side on the bed with his arms crossed over his chest, facing the wall, still fully clothed, except for his shoes. Aziraphale could see the snakish scales on the soles of his foot through the fabric of his stocking.

“I said it was a very rude and unkind thing to say about a lady,” Aziraphale murmured, leaning back in his armchair and watching Crowley. “I didn’t know what else _to_ say. Are you sure I can’t get you a cup of tea, my dear?”

“No,” Crowley said. “Thanks.”

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale murmured. “It’s all— It’s all quite dreadful. And anything I say seems to make it worse, they just don’t do it within my earshot. Are they this awful with the cleaning girls?”

“And then some,” Crowley said. “’Course, Mr Dowling goes through them as well. You’ve noticed the staff turnover rate.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, and felt very sick. “ _Oh_.”

“Or you haven’t noticed,” Crowley said.

“I just thought they’d gotten better jobs,” Aziraphale said. “Or wanted to work elsewhere, one of them asked me if I knew anybody hiring, and I got her a place at the Hyacinth and Vine.”

“That was nice of you,” Crowley said. It sounded wooden.

“We don’t have to do this, you know,” Aziraphale said quietly. “The boy is nearly six, he’s getting too old for a nanny. We could get him some tutors – real people, not us. Get us out of this house.”

“Mrs Dowling doesn’t like him,” Crowley said. “Harriet.”

“What?”

“His mother. She never wanted kids, she told me – she got drunk one night last Christmas, and I had to half-carry her up to bed. She thought it’d be different, with one of her own, but she told me she finds Warlock boring. She just… She just said that to me. Said she doesn’t get any of his games, or the things he likes, hates listening to him talk. He _bores_ her, she said. She’s hoping he’ll be more interesting when he’s older.”

“That’s dreadful,” Aziraphale whispered.

“Yeah,” Crowley said. “I thought that, too.”

Aziraphale looked at Crowley’s bed. In his own bedroom, at home, Aziraphale knew that he had these black, silken sheets, because he’d seen Crowley stop to buy them – they had the most ridiculous thread count, and were absurdly expensive. On his bed here, in the Dowlings’ house, he had a sort of dark green, paisley bed spread, with a chequered patchwork quilt over top. It rather lacked his usual sex appeal – for lack of a better word, it was dowdy. And Aziraphale had to wonder, looking at the cotton cloth, if it really felt like Crowley liked his bed to, when he was usually so obsessed with the feeling of silk beneath him.

It was a rather big bed, to host just Crowley in it. Aziraphale had a cot in Francis’ cottage, but he didn’t really use it to sleep – he just liked to change into pyjamas to read at the end of a nice day, so that he could change again in the morning.

He wondered what it must be like, lying in bed with Crowley, feeling how warm his body was.

It was a dreadful thing to think. If Crowley knew, he’d think Aziraphale was like all those men, _lusting_ after him, but that wasn’t it, it wasn’t… sexual. The idea of sex had never especially appealed, but there might be some appeal in it, with Crowley, and yet— He didn’t think he could ever see the appeal, the way the men on the staff treated it, talked about Nanny Ashtoreth.

He just wanted to… to _touch_ Crowley. Hold him. Would that comfort him, or just make him hate Aziraphale? He hated the idea of Crowley hating him, like he hated the men in the Dowling house, and rightly so, rightly—

What must it be _like_?

He couldn’t imagine.

“Cr— Crowley,” Aziraphale said, getting to his feet.

“Mm?”

_Would you— You wouldn’t take it, I hope, as an, ah, advance, if I laid in bed with you? I just— You look like you need someone to… hold you. I hope that isn’t presumptuous of me, but merely that when I’m upset, I, too, would like…_

“Aziraphale?”

“You’re a very good nanny to Warlock,” Aziraphale murmured. “It’s— Noble of you. To want to stay.”

“Piss off, angel.”

“Alright. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

“Make sure no one sees you.”

“No, I… I know. Good night, dear.”

“Night.”


	3. Warlock's Brain

Warlock couldn’t sleep.

It was very late at night, and he’d been tossing and turning for what felt like hours and hours and _hours_. Nanny had read to him from a book that Brother Francis had suggested, and although she had complained, she’d done all the voices, because she _always_ did all the voices, no matter how much she didn’t like the book.

And _really_ , Warlock thought she _did_ like the book, at least a little bit, because she’d almost laughed when they’d gotten away from the pike on the river.

But now he couldn’t sleep at all. It was too _hot_ , and it was too quiet in his room, except that he’d twisted around the little musical box Nanny had gotten him last Christmas that played _We Are The Champions_ three times, and he still couldn’t sleep.

He sighed, and turned over.

In a lot of the books they read, the kids really liked their moms and dads, but Warlock didn’t like his, he didn’t think. And they were weird to talk to, anyway – Nanny and Brother Francis always talked to him like he was the most important person in the _world_ , and they listened to what he said when he talked, even though they could both be kinda slow sometimes, and he needed to explain stuff, but they never got bored.

Daddy never listened, not ever, he just talked and talked and talked, and everything he talked about was so _boring_ , and Mommy barely ever wanted to talk at all, and kinda came up with weird stuff, and then got annoyed when Warlock didn’t know what she was talking about.

He had mentioned, kinda offhand, at family breakfast, which was meant to be twice a week and ended up being sometimes, mostly never, that he had trouble sleeping, and that sometimes he couldn’t sleep for ages, and that he’d gone to get Nanny, and Daddy had said real boys should be able to learn to go to sleep on their own.

It would be good, he thought, when the world ended. He’d not have to have a bedtime or anything, or a time he _had_ to get up, and he’d never be tired after he couldn’t sleep at night again. But then, Brother Francis said that the world didn’t have to end, if he didn’t want it to, and instead, he could think about saving everybody, and all the animals and the bugs and the fish on the Earth.

Warlock liked fish.

Brother Francis didn’t, he kind of got the impression, because he always seemed sort of confused about the difference between whales and fish and other stuff, and then he also he could barely name any fish except for the ones you could eat. Nanny… Nanny didn’t like fish either. But she took him to the aquarium, once, and even though she wasn’t really into them, she let Warlock choose the whole route they took through the whole place, and never rushed him once, and never tried to get him to come buy a toy just so he’d hurry up.

Mommy had done that at a museum, _and_ at two zoos. He hated going to them with Mommy. Daddy was worse, though, he’d come to one of the zoos with Warlock and Mommy once, and he wouldn’t stop talking about shooting all the animals with guns, and it was so _stupid_.

He sighed. 

Warlock climbed out of bed, and he reached for the stuffed dinosaur he was currently sleeping with, dragging it loosely by its tail as he went for the door of his bedroom, which was slightly ajar. He slept with a night light on, and it was a dinosaur shape, too, with a bright red light to it. He liked it because it put light out, but it didn’t come through his eyelids like the normal one did.

The light was still on in the corridor, and he yawned, reaching up to rub his eyes as he looked for Nanny’s room, except the door wasn’t closed. It was wide open, and one of the cooks was leaning his elbow up on the doorjamb. He was really big. It was Jimmy, and he was really tall even though he was skinny, and he filled up nearly the whole doorway.

“… let me take you out for dinner, huh? You’re a handsome woman, Lily. You need to learn how to _relax_ , darling. Why don’t I come in for a moment?”

It wasn’t the first time Warlock had seen one of the men knocking on Nanny’s bedroom door, after they thought Warlock had gone to sleep. Sometimes, they followed her around, or kept trying to talk to her when she was on her own and reading her book, especially if Warlock was playing with Brother Francis, and she was sitting outside where she could see them. They’d lean right over her, as if they were trying to be bigger than her.

He didn’t get it.

Brother Francis said that some of the men just really liked Nanny, and wanted to be friends with her, but Warlock would hate someone who followed him around all the time, trying to be friends when he wasn’t interested.

And Nanny didn’t like it. He could _see_ she didn’t like it, and it made him feel upset.

“Mr Thwaites,” Nanny said, sounding quietly angry, “I—"

“Nanny,” Warlock said loudly, and the chef turned around, scowling at him. “I can’t sleep. Will you come and read to me?”

“Just go back and lie down,” Mr Thwaites said gruffly. Warlock didn’t like him, and his face was red, and ugly. “You have to learn to sleep on your own.”

“You might take your own advice, Mr Thwaites,” Nanny said coldly. She pushed Mr Thwaites in the chest, out of the doorway, and she pulled her door closed with a quiet click. She was in the purple dressing gown Mommy and Daddy had gotten her a few years ago, which she told Warlock she wore to be polite, but Brother Francis said she liked it because it was expensive. “Come on, darling, let’s put you back to bed, hm? Do you need something to drink?”

“No,” Warlock said. “Just can’t sleep. I laid there _hours_.”

“Nearly three,” Nanny agreed, reaching for his hand.

“Christ’s sake, Lily,” Thwaites said, and Warlock glanced at him, but Nanny didn’t even react, didn’t look at him, and walked Warlock back to his room, bringing him up and into his bed again, tucking the sheets around him. She pressed down on the dinosaur’s head, so that it was a normal light instead of the red one, and she picked up the copy of the _Little Grey Men_ again.

“’M gonna be tired tomorrow,” Warlock said miserably as she shut the door to his bedroom, coming up and settling on the bed beside him, on top of the sheets, and immediately Warlock curled into her, putting his head in her lap. She was warm, and even though she was really skinny and bony, she wore a flannel night dress and the dressing gown was quilted, and that was almost like she had a cushion there.

“I know, darling,” Nanny murmured, and she began to gently stroke his hair. “You should have come and gotten me earlier.”

“Daddy said I should just learn to sleep on my own.”

“You usually do sleep on your own,” Nanny said. Her fingers were warm and rhythmic when they stroked the back of his head, and he let his eyes drift shut, ‘cause they suddenly felt really heavy. “This isn’t you misbehaving, is it, dear? Just insomnia.”

“How come they always come and knock on your door?” Warlock asked. “Do they want to marry you?”

“No,” Nanny said slowly. “They… Some of the men here like Nanny an awful lot, but she doesn’t much care for them.”

“Brother Francis says you don’t like to be friends with many people.”

“I’m not friends with anybody,” Nanny said.

“What about me?”

“Oh, alright,” Nanny said, with an exaggerated sigh. “I have one friend, then.”

Warlock laughed, and he yawned, squeezing his hands into the cushioned body of the T-Rex, pulling it up against his chest. He was feeling dozy, sleepy, now, and he heard Nanny put the book back down on the bedside table, flicking the light back to the red light instead.

“Nanny,” Warlock asked.

“Yes?”

“How come my Mommy and Daddy never really want to do family breakfasts?”

“They’re busy people,” Nanny said. “Your father especially.”

“But they’re _here_. And even when they’re here, I eat breakfast with you. Is it because you like me more than they do?”

“No,” Nanny said. “Just that they work very, very hard, because they want to make life the best for you. We all love you.”

“You and Francis love me more,” Warlock said, a little bit more grumpily than he meant to, but Nanny didn’t tell him off for having an attitude. She just started singing, and Warlock felt his head drop lower, and let sleep take him over.

\--

Crowley gently drew the boy’s head out of his lap, pulling the pillow underneath him instead, and then he removed himself from the bed, padding silently across the floor and pulling the door closed. The insomnia… Was that a sign? The boy was only small, but then again, this did happen in the summers, and Crowley suspected it was just because the nights were hotter than he was used to. A fleece blanket on his bed might be ideal, instead of that quilt he had, just something lighter to sleep under. It was certainly worth a try.

Jimmy Thwaites was still in the corridor.

“I’m not interested,” Crowley muttered, and he just felt _tired_. He was beyond the feelings of violation, of discomfort, now – he was on the verge of _begging_. Thwaites has been harping on at him ever since the Cagney boy had died six months back, and it was _infuriating_.

“Lily—”

“My _name_ ,” Crowley said, “is Lil _ith_. You, however, will call me _Ms Ashtoreth_ , or nothing at all. And honestly, Mr Thwaites? I would prefer the latter.” He moved to walk past, but Thwaites caught him by the wrist and pulled him close, so that Crowley’s arms were pinned between their chests, so that Thwaites was looking down into his face.

“Are you gay?” he asked. It wasn’t a loud demand: it was quiet, _curious_ , as if he didn’t see anything wrong. “You’re too much of a ride to be a lesbian.”

“Let me go,” Crowley said.

“Ain’t healthy, you know, for a woman to go without sex. Or do you whore about on your days off? What, I’m not your type?” Thwaites tugged Crowley’s hand lower, pulled it flush against his crotch, and Crowley grit his teeth to keep from crying out. There was a hot, humiliated flush on his cheeks, and he stared Thwaites in the face.

“Does this really turn you on?” he asked, with all the venom he could manage. “Molesting a co-worker?”

“Molesting makes it sound like you aren’t _gagging_ for it,” Thwaites replied, and Crowley let the scales form on his palm, but before he let them come up on his hand, he looked to Warlock’s door, so close… And just wrenched his hand back. He didn’t want to kill Thwaites, too. He wasn’t a great fan of killing people, even when it _was_ deserved, and the carry-on still hadn’t stopped about Cagney, all those people talking about how _tragic_ it was…

“Mr Thwaites, I do not like you. I find you ugly. I find you disgusting. The idea of your hand on your body repulses and disgusts me. Get _away_ from me.”

It didn’t work. He saw Thwaites _smirk_ , reaching to touch him again, but he became suddenly distracted by a desperate desire to go and throw himself in the pond on the other side of the grounds, and Crowley stood for a long few moments, alone in the corridor.

“Miss Ashtoreth,” said Mr Dowling, and Crowley turned to look at him. “Warlock hasn’t been bothering you, has he?”

“No, Mr Dowling,” Crowley lied smoothly as the man moved closer, giving him a polite (but nonetheless unpleasant) smile. “I was just going to step downstairs.”

“Can I ask you something?”

He’s too tired for this. He contemplates just knocking the man out and miracling him into his bed, but he’s just… so tired. “Mr Dowling?”

“You weren’t ever married?” he asks, raising his eyebrows. “Beautiful woman like you, kinda seems surprising that you’d be a spinster.” He means nothing by it, of course. He thinks the world is his to consider, to analyse, from what he supposes is his unbiased perspective. Crowley wants to hiss at him.

He weighs up his answer carefully, against the knowledge that Mr Dowling is an American, and worse than that, a Republican; against the knowledge that Mr Dowling leans on some of the maids and goes through them quite quickly, on top of the array of women he no doubt bothers in the U.S.; against the fact that Mr Dowling, most of all, is an ass.

“I was married,” Crowley said. “He… died.”

“Long time ago?”

Inexplicably – or, really, completely explicably, but not pleasantly so – Crowley thought of Aziraphale out in the shed on the grounds, and wondered if it was too late at night to go out to him, lie on his bed and listen to him totter about, paging through his book. He didn’t like to do that, but then, he didn’t want anyone else to come knocking on his door…

“No,” Crowley lied. “Not so long ago. A little before I came here for the wain.”

Mr Dowling looked at him, his stupid eyes narrowing just slightly. “You don’t wear a ring.”

 _Keep an eye out for those, do you?_ Crowley almost retorted, but instead he smiled, sadly. “I do,” he said, and reached under his collar for the chain he always wore around his neck, that he had done since Aziraphale had spent those three miserable months as a goldsmith. He held up the ring: it was clumsily made, an ouroboros with three eyes, but Crowley had always liked it. He used to lie to Aziraphale and say he didn’t wear it because he didn’t like to wear gold, but he never took it off. “Close to my heart,” he said softly.

“Devoted wife,” Mr Dowling said, in a tone of approval, as if the world, as if women as a whole, should be in desire of it. “Good.”

“Good night, Mr Dowling,” Crowley murmured, and went downstairs.

He didn’t walk across to Aziraphale’s cottage. He drank some tea, and went to bed, and thankfully, no one else knocked on his door the whole night through. He didn’t sleep. He thought about James Cagney, who he would like to believe deserved what he got, and yet he felt guilty over nonetheless.

It tore at him, some nights, the prickling, biting heat of guilt on his skin, and he stared at the ceiling, and asked God, with soft plea in his voice, where the joke was in giving a demon a fucking conscience. _You made me Fall, that’s one thing_ , he whispered to a silent, unanswering ceiling, his words going right up and rushing along the thin lines of the curving, floral moulding, _but why make me feel? What good does that do anybody? Or bad, for that matter?_

He tossed and turned in his bed until morning.

\--

Warlock was not, at his core, a very rough-and-tumble child. He liked nature walks, so long as his wellingtons were on, and he didn’t have to walk very far off the path, and he liked cats, especially if they were the tired and quiet kind of cat that just wanted to sleep on top of you, but Mommy was allergic to cats.

At least, she _said_ she was, except that when Warlock had never said she sneezed or sniffled when he came in from Brother Francis’ cottage with cat hair all over him, from the big fat tomcat that Brother Francis called Marmalade, Brother Francis had sniffed, and said, “Just like your mother to claim allergy. No, no, dear, don’t worry your head about it. I meant nothing by it.”

Brother Francis didn’t like Warlock’s mom.

He didn’t like Warlock’s dad, either, and what’s more, Daddy didn’t like _him_ , because he said Brother Francis didn’t understand the value of a good lawn, to which Francis had said he certainly didn’t, and thought they should be banned.

But no one stayed angry at Brother Francis for long. They just couldn’t. And animals loved him, and all the flowers on the grounds bloomed brightly where he walked and where he encouraged them, and sometimes there’d just be big flocks of birds on the roofs of his cottage, or they’d all flutter down and settle on his arms.

The birds were a bit scary, Warlock thought. He knew they weren’t dangerous, but he didn’t like the way that they moved, especially when there were loads and loads of them rushing around, and he didn’t like dogs and how they moved either, especially when they were rough and wanted to run around and to wrestle.

Warlock liked outdoor activities that could be enjoyed at a leisurely pace. He liked archery, which Nanny took him out to do every Friday morning, before Warlock went to sit with his tutors. Nanny would take off her jacket, then, so she was just in her thick white shirt sleeves and the waistcoat she wore underneath, and she would show him how to hold the bow, where to draw the bowstring back to, and afterwards would always rub his fingers and kiss them better, so that he didn’t form callouses on his fingertips. He had a little bow, not like Nanny’s at all, but she said when he was older he could have one like hers, a big one that could shoot an arrow hundreds and hundreds of feet.

“Watch this,” she’d whispered to him once, letting her sunglasses drop so she could wink at him with one of her snakish eyes, and then she’d let an arrow fly loose. It had shot across the grounds, and he’d crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at her.

“What’s so special about that?”

“Why don’t you go and see?” Nanny had replied, and Warlock had took off running, despite lacking a natural inclination for the sport. He had scanned the grass as he’d gone along, but he hadn’t been able to see the arrow at all, even though he’d followed the path it had taken, and when he came up to the big apple tree that Francis said he had planted the day he came to the Dowling house, but that Mr Farraday said had to be hundreds of years old, the arrow wasn’t anywhere, not even in the bark.

“It’s _gone_ ,” Warlock had said.

“Is it?” Nanny had replied. “Haven’t I taught you to use your eyes, my darling?”

“I _am_ using them! It was a trick, Nanny, you tricked me!”

“It was a trick _shot_ ,” Nanny allowed, and Warlock had stared, dumbstruck, as she’d reached up to the bough above her head, and plucked an apple right down. The arrow was sticking out of it, and Warlock had stared, wide-eyed, as she’d handed it to him.

“ _Wow_ ,” he said. “Nanny, who taught you to shoot like that?”

“Girl called Artie. We used to get on well.”

“Can I go show Brother Francis?”

Nanny had sighed exaggeratedly. “If you _must_ …”

He liked to be outside, even when it was raining, and he liked zoos and he liked museums, and he liked the beach, especially when they’d once gone for a day at the beach and it had just been Nanny, Mr Farraday, Carrie (one of the bodyguards), and Brother Francis, who had said he’d wanted to get errands done on the beach, and Nanny and Francis had both worn bathing suits out of an oldtimey drawing, that came right down to their knees and their elbows, and Nanny’s had had a sort of skirt around the middle, and Francis had sat by the rockpools and showed him all the crabs and the fish (which he’d specially learned the names of for him, even though Warlock knew them already), and Nanny had taught him how to swim.

Warlock hadn’t liked swimming all that much, but Nanny had said it was important for him to learn, and she’d been _so_ fast in the water, had moved through it like it was barely there at all, and then she’d sat back with Mr Farraday and read her book while Brother Francis had built sandcastles with him. Brother Francis had even gotten Carrie to pick up some seashells to decorate it with.

Warlock remembered that very well, because he remembered almost falling asleep on the train home, his head on Francis’ side, with Francis’ arm around his shoulder, and Nanny talking to Mr Farraday across them.

“Thank you, Ken,” she’d said quietly. “I know it makes you nervous to use the train instead of having a driver for him.”

“If I could have shook it to have Geraldine drive us, I would have, Lilith, but she’s not back from her holiday with her wife for another month. Train’s a fair shout, especially with them camera phones all the lads have.” Mr Farraday had a great distrust of camera phones, and thought that any phone that could do more than dial a number and receive calls was at thing of the devil (which, to be fair, it was). Even his own Nokia, to which his daughters sent the occasional text message, was on thin ice for overstepping its bounds, although he still let Warlock play Snake on it sometimes.

“It’s not fair on the boy,” Nanny had said.

“Why isn’t it?” Francis had asked. “It wouldn’t be fairer on him if you couldn’t come in the sea with him because you didn’t know what they’d say about your bathing costume.”

“Or if he’d heard them making lewd remarks about it,” Mr Farraday had muttered.

Warlock had looked up what _lood_ meant when he came home. It hadn’t been in the dictionary. But he knew it was to do with the way the male staff were with Nanny, and why Nanny didn’t like them, except for Mr Farraday, and Brother Francis, and Carrie, who was okay, because she was a lady.

Warlock mentioned it, when he was playing with Perry and Mackenzie, two of the kids his parents always wanted him to play with. “My nanny,” he said, “doesn’t like the men at my house. They’re rude to her, I think.”

“My nanny will get sent back to her own country if she steals anything,” Mackenzie had replied airily. “My mommy said she needs to remember her place.”

“I bet they want to have _sex_ with her, but she won’t let them,” Perry said. “That happened with my daddy and my nanny.”

“Sex?” Warlock repeated. “Like, how you make babies?”

“That’s not how you make _babies_ ,” Mackenzie said, giving Warlock a withering look. “God plants a seed in a lady’s belly.”

“God doesn’t know anything about gardening, Mackenzie,” Warlock retorted.

“ _Sex_ ,” Perry said confidently, “is something men and women do together, and men really like it, but women don’t as much, and so there’s wrestling and stuff. Like cats.”

“I didn’t know cats had sex,” Warlock said.

“They do,” Perry said, with a sage nod. “The man cat has to hold the lady cat down and bite her, and she screams, but he makes sure she can’t kick him off. It must feel really good for the man cat, I think, but Mommy says I’ll understand it when I’m older, and that Daddy needs to sow his wild oats.”

“What does that mean?” Mackenzie asked.

“To be honest,” Perry said, squinting, “I’m not sure.”

\--

“ _I_ know what _sex_ is,” Warlock said confidently when Nanny met him on Perry’s doorstep to walk him home. The bodyguard today was Jeff, hovering about thirty feet away, and Nanny was ignoring him.

“ _Do_ you?” she asked, arching an eyebrow. “I should hope you do, after we had that discussion last year. Very rude of those giraffes, too, to necessitate that conversation when we were at the zoo, trying to enjoy ourselves.” Nanny wrinkled her nose. “I do wish those things didn’t drool so much. That was more distressing than the pose, I think, all those buckets of saliva.”

“Did you know cats had it?” Warlock demanded.

“Buckets of saliva?”

“Sex.”

“I did,” Nanny said. “Most animals do.”

“Do plants?”

“No,” Nanny said. “Not the way I explained to you, with a penis and a vagina. Some insects do, but not others. Er, most fish don’t, but I _think_ octopus do. Maybe. Mystery, octopuses are.”

“The plural is actually octopodes, Nanny,” Warlock said.

“Oh, _is_ it?” Nanny was smiling as she took Warlock’s hand, letting them walk together down the pavement with Jeff walking ahead of them to the car.

“No, but Perry told me what sex _really_ is,” Warlock said. “And that it’s about the male cat feeling good, and he said that it’s the same with his daddy and the nanny.”

Nanny took this in for a moment, seeming to digest it.

“And that men and women have sex, but not to make babies,” Warlock went on, “and that’s why you don’t like the cooks or the bodyguards, because you won’t give them sex.” Nanny’s head shifted slightly to look at Jeff ahead of them on the path, and Warlock looked too, but he hadn’t said it too loudly, and Jeff wasn’t turning around.

“Men and women _do_ have sex to make babies,” Nanny said quietly. “People also have sex once they’re older, because it feels good, and it’s a way to show somebody that you love them, and you want to be close to them. Sometimes, it’s men and women, and sometimes, it’s men and men, or women and women. When you start going through puberty – you remember, we talked a little about your body changing in a few years, getting hairier and so on? – then you’ll know more about that.” She inhaled, her nostrils flaring, and then she said, “A lot of things between adults are determined by sex. Sometimes, people get rude and nasty when someone won’t have sex with them, or when they think that they won’t. And some people, who are very horrible and base people, use sex to try to intimidate people, or to hurt them. It… It isn’t _about_ being a man, but some men are taught that because they’re men, they can and they should act like that. That’s why it’s very important to remember about asking people before you touch them, and making sure that they respect you saying you don’t want them to, or stopping if someone asks you. That applies to everything, not just to sex.”

“Even when Aunt Alice wants me to kiss her on the cheek and I don’t want to?”

“Even then.”

“I hate Aunt Alice. She’s more powder than skin.”

“I expect if you gave her a thump, there’d be a cloud of dust.” Warlock giggled. “You should try that.”

“I’m not going to thump Aunt Alice!”

“Why not? It’ll be funny.”

“Because she wouldn’t want me to!”

“Good lad,” Nanny murmured, and ruffled his hair.

\--

“Nanny?” Warlock asked when Nanny’s hand was on his bedroom door. She turned back to look at him, her hand lingering on the doorknob, and Warlock shifted in his bed, under the light fleece blanket Nanny had gotten him as a surprise, but not under the quilt, because it was too hot for that.

“Yes, my darling boy?”

“You won’t hate me when I grow up, will you? Because I’ll be a man?”

There was a moment of silence, and he saw the glint of the red light on Nanny’s sunglasses, the press of her lips together. “Warlock,” she said quietly, “I won’t _ever_ hate you. Not ever. And you wouldn’t ever do any of those things that make me dislike some of the men here, either.”

“But what about if I destroy the world?”

“That’s different, darling,” Nanny said. “You’ll be destroying all those horrible men, for a start, and bringing pain and suffering to the people that wreak it. Punishment. That’s… destiny.”

“Brother Francis says it’s not. He says I can just choose to be kind.”

“You don’t listen to _him_. You listen to _me_.”

“He says that about you,” Warlock said.

“He would do. No original thoughts in his fat head, that man.” Warlock laughed, and closed his eyes.

“Love you, Nanny.”

“I love you too, dear,” Nanny said, and pulled the door too as she stepped out.

\--

“He’s six and a half, Crowley,” Aziraphale said. “Do you really think he needs a nanny, still?”

“Just until he’s seven,” Crowley said. He had barely eaten anything all night, but had picked a little bit at Aziraphale’s dessert, and now he took up a chunk of matcha cake and put it into his mouth, not chewing, just crushing it with his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

“I know you like children, Crowley, and I know you love the boy, but—”

“Shut up,” Crowley said.

“I love him too,” Aziraphale said quietly. “But we have a _job_ to do, and it isn’t—” He looked at Crowley’s face, at the tightness in his jaw, the twist of his lips, the coldness of his eyes behind the dark lenses of his spectacles. He wished he knew what to say, but he never did, not with Crowley – not with anybody. “Just until he’s seven. Then we’ll let the tutors take over completely.”

“Alright,” Crowley said. His fingers drummed a nervous rhythm against the table. Aziraphale ached to hold his hand.

\--

“Nanny!” Warlock called as he rushed back into the house, running up from the party. It was time to open presents, but he hated doing it without Nanny there to watch, because he liked the faces she made when she knew he’d gotten something he didn’t like. Her door was ajar, and he knocked on it loudly before pushing it open. “Nanny, you have to come downstairs, we’re doing presents n—”

Nanny had stood up quickly from the edge of the bed, wearing a dress – she liked to wear a proper dress on Warlock’s birthdays, she said it was a special occasion – wiping her cheeks, and Warlock hesitated.

“Nanny?”

“I didn’t notice the time,” Nanny said, smoothing down her skirt. “I’m sorry, dear, I’ll walk out with you.”

“Nanny…”

Nanny inhaled, and then she crouched down, settling on her knees on the carpet. Warlock didn’t usually like it when adults knelt down or bent like that, but it was different when Nanny did it.

“Nanny, you’re crying,” Warlock said, and he reached up, touching her cheek. A tear had leaked out from underneath her glasses, and her cheek was wet. “You’re not meant to be _crying_ , Nanny, it’s my _birthday_ , you’re meant to be happy.”

“I am happy,” Nanny said. “I’m _so_ happy, Warlock, and I— I love you very much, and I’m very happy it’s your birthday, and we’re going to have a very good time.”

“Was one of the men horrible to you again?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Nanny said, shaking her head, and she reached up, cupping Warlock’s cheeks in her hands, looking at his face like she was committing it to memory, and Warlock bit his lip. “Just that— Well, you’re seven now, dear, you’re getting to be a very big boy. Hardly any need for you to have an old nanny, now, is there?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Warlock said. “What am I meant to do _without_ you?”

“Just go on,” Nanny said, shrugging her shoulders, which were shaking a little. “Your tutors will look after you, Mr Harrison and Mr Cortese. You don’t need an old lady following you about, do you?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Warlock insisted. “Yes, I _do_ , Nanny, you can’t go! And I don’t— I don’t care if it’s to go look after another little boy or another little girl, because you’re _my_ nanny, and I don’t want you to!”

“Warlock—”

“ _No_. You’re not going now?”

“No, no, I just handed in my resignation, I won’t be going for another month, so you don’t need to wor—”

“I don’t want you to go _at all!_ That’s not fair! I don’t want to just be stuck here with Mom and Dad, they’re _stupid_ , and they don’t _care_ like you do, I want _you_.”

“My b—”

“Get off me,” Warlock said, and shoved her hands off. “I don’t want you to be at my birthday party if you’re going to be horrible and you’re going to _leave_. You’re _worse_ than Mom and Dad.”

He slammed the door when he left.

\--

Warlock didn’t let Crowley put him to bed that night, and Crowley slept the night through in Aziraphale’s cottage, He didn’t sleep for the longest time, of course. He just laid on his side, his arms crossed so tightly over his chest that Aziraphale was worried he’d break them, and Aziraphale looked at him from time to time, unable to concentrate on his book.

“He is the Antichrist, Crowley,” Aziraphale said softly, at one point. “He’s… It’s not the same as a normal child.”

“He said I’m worse than his parents, for leaving him,” Crowley whispered. “He knows they don’t love him like you do.”

“Like _we_ do.”

“Like you do.”

Aziraphale hesitated, and then he reached out, and he put his hand on Crowley’s ankle, which was within the reach of his chair. Squeezed, gently.

Crowley shuddered, but then he relaxed, and actually closed his eyes. Aziraphale wondered if he ought feel guilty for letting his hand linger on Crowley’s ankle even after he fell asleep.

\--

“Is it because of me?” Warlock asked as he stood in Nanny’s bedroom, watching her pack. “Is it because I listen to Francis too much? Because I’ll stop, Nanny, I’ll never do anything he says again!”

“No,” Nanny said, shaking her head. “No, dear, it’s nothing to do with you. Just that I have to move on, and you’re a bit old for a nanny now. I can hardly stay here forever, can I?”

“Why _not_?”

“I just can’t,” Nanny said, and Warlock watched her fold a dress, setting it back into her suitcase. “I’m sorry, my boy, I am, but I… I’m just your nanny, you know. I’m not one of your parents.”

Warlock kept his mouth closed. The silent understanding passed between them, wrought with bitterness on one side and grief on the other.

“Why can’t I come with you?”

“You want me to kidnap you?” Nanny asked, arching an eyebrow. “I’ve often wondered about stealing the child of a diplomat and testing my chances, darling boy, but I rather think it’s beyond my capabilities.”

“Will you visit?”

“Maybe.”

“That means no.”

“It means _maybe_.”

“Nanny,” Warlock said.

“Yes?”

“I don’t want you to go.”

Nanny froze, her shoulders drawing back, her head dipping forward for a bit, and Warlock felt like bursting into tears.

“I know, dear,” she said, her voice wavering only a little bit. “Pass me that scarf on the door.”

\--

Nanny read to Warlock for over an hour, that night, because she was leaving in the morning, and Warlock insisted on laying his head in her lap, holding onto her tightly. He woke up when it was a little late at night, and he stood up without hesitating, moving to pull open the door.

He froze.

\--

Crowley had let down his hair, and was combing through it absentmindedly. He’d probably get it cut, now that he didn’t _need_ it this long, but he liked having it, he liked… He sighed, and he turned to look around the room, at the empty shelves, the empty chest of drawers, empty wardrobe.

He was going to just fold his sheets in the morning and throw them into a box, put them in the back of the taxi.

On the chest of drawers, there was a piece of paper. It read _Carrie : )_ on it, and had a phone number.

That had been— Flattering, actually. Nice.

“No pressure,” she’d said, slipping it into her hand. “Just in case you want to give me a try. Didn’t want to ask before, in case you thought I was like the lads, but, as you’re going, you know. Just in case.”

It had been—

 _Sweet_.

His chest still felt like it had been cleaved open, and he wasn’t going to want to do anything for the next few months, he knew, just go away somewhere and be chaotic and ridiculous, not… not a _person_ , for a while. Just be a demon instead.

There was a knock at the door, and he sighed, bracing himself for another difficult conversation about why he was leaving, but when he opened the door, it wasn’t Warlock. It was Mr Dowling, with a grin on his face.

He had spoken with Mr and Mrs Dowling. Mrs Dowling had asked him to stay on, said she’d give him a pay rise, but he’d shaken his head, said he had another job lined up, that he needed to move on. They’d insisted on a bonus, said to call them if he wanted to come back, if the other job didn’t turn out.

Mrs Dowling had been rather frantic about it, which Crowley hoped was a good sign, a sign that she’d feel pressured to step up to the plate, rather than something else. He felt guilty. The guilt was unfathomable. He felt like he was abandoning his son.

Stupid of him, really. Stupid.

“Mr Dowling,” Crowley said.

“Tell me honestly,” Mr Dowling commanded, and Crowley arched an eyebrow. “You ever do anything other than nannying?”

“I’m sorry?”

“ _Jusst_ ,” Mr Dowling said, slurring the word just a bit. Crowley could smell the whiskey on his breath, “you know. D’you ever do anything else? Uh, stern, scary… Hot. You look like the kind of lady who knows what to do with a whip.”

“Mr Dowling, you are inebriated,” Crowley said, and his hand went for the doorknob, but Mr Dowling grabbed him by the back of his hip and pulled him closer, pushing him against the side of the doorframe, one of his legs shoved up between his legs, and Crowley shuddered out a breath.

“Promised Harriet I wouldn’t shit where I eat,” he said, grinning, and Crowley pressed his head back against the doorframe, but Mr Dowling reached out with one hand to touch his hair, and Crowley hated that he’d let it down, hated how his fingers felt, clumsily dragging through it, catching on some of them and tugging uncomfortably. Neither he nor Mr Dowling heard the quiet opening of another door in the hall. “Maids are easy, but she said you were too good to replace. Nothing wrong with it, now, is there? Always saw the way you looked at me, want a real man to put you in your place—”

“I cannot count the ways in which you are wrong,” Crowley said. “Get off me.”

“Why don’t we get off together? I’ll let you suck my—”

Crowley shoved Mr Dowling back, hard, and then he slipped back into his room, slamming the door closed. The lock clicked.

Across the corridor, watching his father with a red, angry flush on his cheeks, swaying on his feet, Warlock stepped back into his own room, and pushed his door shut too.

\--

“Promise you’ll come back,” Warlock said on the doorstep, and Nanny sighed, touching his cheek.

“I can’t do that, my darling boy,” she murmured.

 _I know why you have to go_ , he wanted to say. _It’s because of my dad, but if you stayed, he wouldn’t be able to, and I could sleep outside in the corridor every night and he wouldn’t ever knock on your door again, not ever, not ever._

“I love you, Nanny,” Warlock said, and Nanny pressed her lips to the top of his head, laying a kiss on his hair. “I’ll miss you.”

“I know, dear,” she whispered. “I’ll miss you too.”

Warlock watched her cab go.

That night, his mother came into his bedroom, and tried to read to him from one of those stupid _Horrid Henry_ books that Aunt Alice had gotten him for Christmas, even though he didn’t really _need_ to be read to, and anyway, she didn’t do any of the voices right.

“This is a nice lamp,” she said, desperately, when she felt that things weren’t going well. “Nanny got it for you, didn’t she?”

“I don’t need it,” Warlock muttered, turning away from his mother and pulling both the quilt and his fleece blanket over his head, even though it was too hot for both. “Night lights are for babies. Besides, I _hate_ dinosaurs.” _And I hate you_ , he didn’t say. _And I hate Daddy, and I want my Nanny back._

“Oh,” his mother said. “Right.”

He cried, after his mother left.

In his own bed, slapbang in the middle of London, in his red silk pyjamas on his black silk sheets, Anthony Crowley cried too.

**FIN**


	4. Epilogue

After they got back from Megiddo, or whatever the Hell it was supposed to be, Warlock sat outside on the grass, under the old apple tree, which spread outward like a big, leafy umbrella. Nanny had shot an arrow into one of the apples once, he remembered, but he’d not done barely any archery at all since she’d gone, because none of the instructors were as good at it as she was.

Brother Francis had left the week after Nanny had.

Some of the chefs had joked that they’d eloped together, that they’d finally gone off together so that Francis could fuck her, and that night Warlock had crept into the kitchen and put firecrackers in the oven and the kettle and the toasters and the microwaves. Jimmy Thwaites had nearly lost his eye, and Warlock had laughed and laughed, but they couldn’t ever prove it was him.

He knew it was stupid to miss his nanny, but it was even stupider to be stuck with his parents, especially his Dad. And this year, he was going off to a boarding school in London _anyway_ , and then when he was 13, Mom said he’d have to go off to Harrow. It was _stupid_.

He hated it.

He _hated_ it, hated everything, and he just wanted—

He didn’t know.

There was a loud _thwack_ above his head, and he looked up.

The apple was still swinging from the arrow in it, and he looked over the flat of the grounds. She was just as tall as ever, striding across the grass with the bow slung over her shoulder, and Warlock was already running, tears burning hot in his eyes even as he laughed.

Nanny picked him right off the ground when he reached her, like he didn’t weigh anything at all, and buried her face in his hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please remember to leave feedback and tell me what you thought! Just a note that I am, in fact, a man, so like, people really don't need to assume I'm a woman or refer to me as one in their comments. Thanks!
> 
> [This is the link](https://patricianandclerk.tumblr.com/post/186114113569/nanny-knows-best) to the fic on Tumblr.

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up [on Dreamwidth](https://dictionarywrites.dreamwidth.org/2287.html). You can send requests [on Tumblr](http://patricianandclerk.tumblr.com/ask), too. Requests always open. Check out [Fuck Yeah, Gabriel! too](https://fuckyeahgabrielgoodomens.tumblr.com/)!
> 
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